Future Moves Closer to Billboard History

The Atlanta rapper Future has reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart for a fourth time this week, and next week may make chart history with a fifth album.

Future’s self-titled album, released by Epic on Feb. 17, went straight to No. 1 with 109 million streams and 60,000 sales in its first week, according to data from Nielsen. In the new “multi-metric consumption” formula used by Nielsen and Billboard to reconcile the various ways that listeners now access music, “Future” had the equivalent of 140,000 full album sales. It is Future’s fourth time at No. 1, after “DS2,” “Evol” and “What a Time to Be Alive,” a collaboration with Drake.

That’s all good, but next week may be even bigger for Future. His second new album this year, “HNDRXX,” was released on Friday, and according to early data collected by BuzzAngle — a Nielsen competitor that publishes daily sales updates — it has the advantage to be No. 1 next week. If so, Future would be the first artist in the six-decade history of the Billboard 200 to have two new albums make their debuts at No. 1 on successive charts. (Its competition includes a new release by John Mayer, as well as the second-week sales of Future’s own album.)

Also this week, Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic” (Atlantic) is No. 2, and the soundtrack to “Fifty Shades Darker” (Universal Studios/Republic), last week’s No. 1, falls two spots to third place. The Weeknd’s “Starboy” (XO/Republic) is No. 4 and Migos’s “Culture” (Quality Control/300) is No. 5.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Future Hits No. 1 on Billboard Chart. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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